Genre/Tags: Fantasy/Romantasy, PNR, Enemies to Lovers, Blood, Violence, Found Family 

Author: Callie Hart

Story Rating: 4 Stars

Narrator: Stella Bloom, Anthony Palmini

Narrator Rating: 5 Stars

Length: 20 hours & 41 minutes

Audiobook Buy Links: Audible

Do not touch the sword. Do not turn the key. Do not open the gate.

In the land of the unforgiving desert, there isn’t much a girl wouldn’t do for a glass of water.

Twenty-four-year-old Saeris Fane is good at keeping secrets. No one knows about the strange powers she possesses or the fact that she has been picking pockets and stealing from the Undying Queen’s reservoirs for as long as she can remember.

But a secret is like a knot. Sooner or later, it is bound to come undone.

When Saeris comes face-to-face with Death himself, she inadvertently reopens a gateway between realms and is transported to a land of ice and snow. The Fae have always been the stuff of myth, of legend, of nightmares… but it turns out they’re real, and Saeris has landed herself right in the middle of a centuries-long conflict that might just get her killed.

The first of her kind to tread the frozen mountains of Yvelia in over a thousand years, Saeris mistakenly binds herself to Kingfisher, a handsome Fae warrior, who has secrets and nefarious agendas of his own. He will use her Alchemist’s magic to protect his people, no matter what it costs him… or her.

Death has a name. It is Kingfisher of the Ajun Gate.

His past is murky. His attitude stinks. And he’s the only way Saeris is going to make it home.

Be careful of the deals you make, dear child. The devil is in the details…

From USA Today bestselling author Callie Hart comes a brand new, highly addicting enemies-to-lovers romantasy with razor-sharp banter, heart-stopping action, and blistering hot romance that you won’t be able to stop listening to! For mature listeners.

Review:

“Protecting them while they live is considered a sacred rite that many die in order to perform. That’s what Oshellith means in Old Fae, Saeris. Most Sacred.”

I kept bumping into this book cover on Goodreads and Amazon. I love, love, LOVE that cover! The blurb was also interesting. It honestly kept calling to me, for literally months, but I read some reviews which weren’t terribly flattering, so I thought, “nope, unknown to you author, Kaz, leave it alone.” So, I did. In the meantime I read two other books that were recced by a friend and failed miserably for me. I’m kinda, sorta finding my way into the romantasy world at the moment. I know I have to trust my gut, no matter the genre, because I thoroughly enjoyed Quicksilver.  

My thoughts on the narration: I first bought this in e-book format but after a while, when I knew this was definitely going to be a review book, I purchased the audiobook as well. It helped give my eyes a rest from physically reading. It was such a good decision because the audiobook truly elevated the whole experience. Initially I wasn’t sure if I would be onboard with Stella Bloom because Saeris Fane is a scrapper from a slum and Bloom has such a pure voice. Honestly, she proved me very wrong. Her voice made the book all the better for the sheer quality of her narration. The author also used a male for the male roles in the book even though it’s purely Saeris’ POV throughout. I wish more authors would do this. It made Quicksilver all the better for it. I loved hearing Kingfisher, in particular, in male narration, and Anthony Palmini has a wonderful timbre and tone. I imagined Carrion with an Irish accent as I read the e-book but that was going to be a stretch. Nevertheless, Palmini delineated the male characters very well. The overall production value of this audiobook was next level. For example, there are times when the quicksilver, in particular, has multiple voices all at the same time. The narrators and the team behind it made sure listeners were given true-to-the-story fantasy world realness. It’s 5 star listening all the way. 

There is a lot to digest within the pages of Quicksilver. Some detailed storytelling, some things that didn’t complete until later, and in the middle section of this book it slowed down to the minutiae. I’m honestly lost as I’m typing this review. To explain it fully is like quicksilver in my brain. The book is perfectly named because of the changing nature of the primary characters, places, and events.  

The basic story: Saeris Fane is a survivor. She fights, steals, trades to create a marginal existence for herself and her brother, Hayden, in the slums of Zilvaren. As is the case in a lot of these romantasy books, both parents are dead and Saeris has daggers, and knows how to use them. Nothing new, but I’m very onboard with this because I love me some stabby types. Saeris has also learned how to forge at Elroy’s, a family friend who makes windows for the Hub, the upper echelon. Saeris has forged metal, which is forbidden, and she’s practiced using weaponry. This part of the story, in Zilvaren, is short, but forms a backdrop to the overall story. While you get a general feeling, you don’t get to know a lot about her life until much, much later. That’s because the book starts at breakneck speed with Saeris being chased for stealing a guard’s expensive, metal gauntlet.

This gauntlet was more than a piece of stolen armor. It was my brother’s education. Three years’ worth of food. Tickets out of Zilvaren, south, to where the reckoning winds that buffeted the dry-boned hills were twenty degrees cooler than here in the Silver City.

 

Saeris ends up captured by Madra’s head guard, Harron. Madra orders him to kill Saeris and make her “sing” while he’s at it. Saeris isn’t going down without a fight. She grabs a sword that is seemingly locked in place in a frozen silver pool but you don’t think about that in life or death situations. She fights well but isn’t up to guard-level training. Things look bleak for her under the palace, in the Hall of Mirrors, when a man, a beautiful but savage looking man, comes out of the silver pool, helping dispatch the guard, whisking an unconscious and mortally wounded Saeris, and the sword, – Solace – away.

She wakes up weeks later in a place called Cahlish at the Winter Palace. Clearly a land of snow and ice. Something she thought only existed in her mother’s songs and books. So very opposite to the sandy and dry Zilvaren. A woman with pointed ears is watching over her. It turns out that she is Everlayne, the daughter of King Belikon De Barra of the Yvellian fae.  

At the Winter Palace court Saeris is again looked at with disdain. Different place, same vibe. They clearly don’t like her being there. Yet this time the monarch wants a favour. In return for one of his fae saving her life and giving her somewhere to heal he wants payment. Pffft. Fae and debt. Saeris has no clue how she’s going to do what he wants. What she did, grabbing the sword from the (quick)silver pool, was during a time of extreme duress and it just happened, she doesn’t know how she did it. Belikon wants Saeris to use her alchemy skills again. To Saeris that is a whole lot of, ‘say what now’?  He wants to fully (re)open the portals of quicksilver, not anything Saeris knows a single thing about. What she does know is that she wants to get back to her brother. To Elroy. To Carrion Swift, a one time lover, thief, friend. Her inner sanctum, her entire ward, will be wiped out because she stole the gauntlet. Madra is nothing if not a long-lived, unrelentingly cruel, unforgiving queen bitch.  

We get pulled along for the ride with Saeris. There is no spoon-feeding. We learn details and information as Saeris does. Which means being patient. The time spent in Zilvaren and Yvelia is short because Saeris has much more daunting things ahead of her. Alchemy 101. How to forge relics using quicksilver which leads into other metalwork. While Belikon wants her alchemy skills, so does Kingfisher. The reasons why they want it, or the inference Saeris gets, it’s not unified. Kingfisher saved her so he wins that battle. She knows nada about alchemy or relics forging. Sword creation and the gods attached. And reading books is getting her to minus nada. I’ll admit that the library section was frustratingly slow. However, she eventually gets a forge to work at with some metal but nothing seems to take. She uses other organic materials. Still nothing. How can she be some powerful alchemist and know nothing about it?  At this stage, the real constant was Kingfisher being difficult, his 2IC and friend, Renfis, attempting to smooth things out. Renfis is kind to Saeris while also remaining loyal to Kingfisher. It’s also Saeris trying not to see Fisher as gorgeous, then actually being disabused of that notion because of his barbs, his swinging pendulum of moods, but she moves back around to looking at him and admiring, because he is fine. Then there’s the matter of his initial blood oath with her. Saeris requests that Kingfisher goes to Zilvaren to bring Hayden back to be with her if she has to do all this alchemy for him. So she knows Hayden is safe. Fisher agrees but-

“I go and I try to get your brother. You help me and assist me in any way that I ask you to, and you do as you’re told. You agree to this pact?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“You understand that this is a blood oath? And you will be bound to this oath until death?”
“Yes! Gods, I understand! I agree. Just get on with-” 
Kingfisher slapped his palm against mine and held on tight.

Pfft. Fae and contracts. 

Kingfisher: He of smoke and shadows. His shadow portals can transport people over long distances. And he can also smoke the clothes off a girl’s back. Just saying. Not going to lie, though, he’s a royal pain in the arse for quite a while. He is rude, crass, a dichotomy. He calls Saeris Little Osha, which she feels demeans her, makes her seem young and incapable, something she hates. He doesn’t disavow her of that notion, and all the while Renfis asks Saeris to be understanding of Fisher, we get the why of that later in the book. He also tells Kingfisher to do better in regards to Saeris. Having finished this book I can say with clarity that Fisher has been to at least 5 of Dante’s 9 Circles of Hell. And on high rotation. His warriors, his staff, the people at the forest town of Ballard, where he has a smaller property, and at the 20,000 strong camp near the war front, all seem to idolise Fisher. We know he gave the pendant he usually wears to Saeris after he saved her at Zilvaren to help her heal. We can work out it’s important to his sanity. What it costs him when the pendant is not on him, it’s a lot. So we know that there is so much more to Kingfisher that he doesn’t show to Saeris, and we don’t get his POV just his spoken word.        

“I’m not well,” Fisher whispered. “I can’t sleep. I’m haunted, constantly. I see things. I hear things. And it’s getting worse.” He hooked his pendant around his finger, closing his hand around it. “This won’t help for much longer—”

Saeris: I really liked her. She’s a survivor no matter where she lands – Zilvaren, Yvelia, Ballard, Sanasroth, Ammontraíeth, Gillethrye.  She gives as good as she gets, even when the odds are not favourable. Her whole world has been turned upside down when she was initially plucked from the quicksilver, but she steadily grows and adapts. Saeris is resilient and I love resilience in my main characters. She learns about things that shouldn’t exist – fae, sprites, feeders, warriors who have fought a war for centuries against an advancing horde of revenant-like vampires lead by the cunning Malcolm and his lords. That the fae fight with no assistance from King Belikon. And in fae culture, names hold incredible power. 

“All names hold power in this place. Every name means something. We have true names that we don’t share with anyone. Not our friends. Not out families. Our mothers are often the only people who actually know it. And even a mother might use her child’s name to her own advantage in the pursuit of power.”

There’s also being god-bound. A whole other thing. For quite a while Saeris remains steadfast in wanting to save Hayden. She also has to put up with Kingfisher who is, unbeknownst to her, fighting against a prophecy, of sorts, and Saeris doesn’t know about Fisher’s own oath. Once Saeris truly knows the score because he lets her in, once she sees the real Kingfisher, she wants to stay and be alongside him come what may. That includes Renfis, Carrion and Lorreth. Their army. The growth that Saeris has throughout Quicksilver is substantial.    

“The only way I’m staying in this tent is if you force me to,” I said in a shaky voice. And here it was. The moment he officially won me or lost me. If he ordered me to stay and took away my will, it didn’t matter how much things had changed between us. Nor would it matter how much I needed him. I would never speak to him again. 

The above had me cheering, You go, girl!

The romance: First of all – age gap! Kingfisher is approximately 1,800, doesn’t look a day over thirty, and Saeris is twenty-four. I know some people felt that the romance wasn’t a slow burn. I get it. I felt it took longer for that absolute connection. While Saeris desires Kingfisher from the moment she sees him, feels he is the most beautiful man she has ever laid eyes on, and they do kiss around the 30% mark, the romance and the emotional and physical connection takes a little longer to arrive. Kingfisher is trying to keep Saeris to help his people while simultaneously pushing her away. He doesn’t want to bond her to a man who has failing mental health, a never-ending war in place, and a country that has a lot of problems within its border, even bigger ones just over the other side of the frozen Darn. Once Fisher becomes vulnerable, once he makes it safe for Saeris to do the same, they’re truly a wonderfully addictive couple. And the sex isn’t too much but it’s  certainly hot.

He pulled me even closer, grip tightening around my throat, his thumb digging into my jaw, and I allowed my head to rock back. He buried his face into the crook of my neck, groaning, and the thought rose to my mind unbidden. Dangerous.
Bite me.

The fantasy: While the pacing was a little choppy for me, the overall calibre of writing is beautiful. It definitely transports you somewhere far away from your current reading space. There are juxtaposed lands, one of biting thirst, another of stark cold. There are plenty of beings that fill the pages but not many of them get a lot of description except the feeder horde. The character development is slow but deliberate. Worth it. The environment that the main characters find themselves in, wherever that may be, is vividly drawn by Hart. A world that can be pretty but dangerous, with warring parties, powerplays, some friendship, hope, romance. For a while, Saeris wants to sneakily steal Fisher’s pendant and leave for Zilvaren. Then she gets caught up in being able to create relics, more complex transmutation, and with these alchemical processes, feeling like she’s part of something bigger.

But Fisher and Saeris are biding their time to fulfill something more than they could ever suspect, even though Fisher knew Saeris was coming for a long time. His mother, who was an oracle, told him a woman would come blazing into his life like a meteorite full of chaos, one with long dark hair, a beautiful smile. She drew her centuries ago. Only with fae ears, for reasons. Saeris learns about the quicksilver bit by bit until it comes together in a big way for her. Because yes, our girl is an alchemist even if she takes a while for it to click into place. That Carrion had a part to play in that was both infuriating, because Carrion doesn’t need anymore proof he’s right, and helpful, because Saeris was getting nowhere prior. Going from someone who was a petty thief, trying to look out for herself and her younger brother, to someone with a potential power to sculpt dangerous or lifesaving things, depending on whose viewpoint we’re talking about. Gaining the attention of the vampire king, also gods. It’s a lot to take onboard. Cruelty, though, it’s a common thread between royalty of Zilvaren, the fae world, and the feeders. The way Saeris reconstructs what was once Danya’s sword to Lorreth’s is amazing and the angels breath was a revelation.

The quicksilver talks to Saeris, makes deals with her, wants ballads created for it, who can blame it, music creates a mood. Part of the quicksilver is permanently within Kingfisher and causes him… mental anguish. Swords are related to gods so they have power and they are all noble by name. Kingfisher’s eventual revelation about why he had a nickname for Saeris, what it meant, why he used it alone for a long time, it was beautiful.  

The secondary characters are strong. Renfis is awesome but Carrion Swift adds his own swagger. Kingfisher bringing him instead of Hayden – sorry, Hayden – was the best thing that could have happened for sheer reading enjoyment. Carrion’s humour, his attitude, was a welcome relief at times. I loved how he referred to Kingfisher as “our benevolent kidnapper.”  Plus, he can hold his own, has a revelation of his own. And in amongst all the poignant sword names of Nimerelle, Avisiéth, and Solace, Carrion names his Simon. Because, well, that’s very Carrion.  

Carrion grinned, all teeth and mischief. “I’m coming with you through that portal. I’m gonna help you save your asshole boyfriend. But first, I want one of those fancy swords.”

TLDR Checklist:

Brooding primary male character – tick

One with shadows – tick

One with long teeth that he uses to (sexily) bite – tick

Gutsy female primary character – tick

Daggers – tick

Swords – tick

Bloodshed – a little on the lighter side overall, still – tick

Good world building – tick

Nice writing – tick

Addictive? We get there, so – tick

Romance you can get behind? IMO – tick

Interesting storyline – tick

Cliffhanger ending – quasi-cliffy. Questions and what’s next? definitely exist

If you haven’t given Quicksilver a try, grab a sample and see what you think. That’s exactly what I did and it was indicative of the writing throughout. Happy reading! Here’s to book #2 coming sooner rather than later.